photo by Mark Hoekstra, remixed by fbz, used under a creative commons by-nc-sa license

I don’t even know if I can begin to write this post, but I feel obliged to share a few thoughts on Markie leaving this earth. His untimely death was shocking and I will miss him immensely. Markie and I first met virtually through some photos of bunnies he had taken of What the Hack. We then met in person at the first EuroOSCON held in Amsterdam (photo above is of us from the second EuroOSCON in Brussels). Markie upheld all that is hardware hacking, tinkering, modding, open source, and of course maintained an incredible (working!) vintage hardware collection. The news that he had passed away came just as many of us were creating some crazy interactive projects for the Mediamatic RFID Hacker Camp in Amsterdam last week. He had participated in the camp the year before, so many of us there knew Markie. I was not only saddened by the loss but spurred on to build something fabulous that he would have been proud of. Markie, may your spirit live on with loads of vintage gear, open source platforms, and green alligator clips.